Documentation

ethnic group
subject's ethnicity (consensus is that a VERY high standard of proof is needed for this field to be used. In general this means 1) the subject claims it themselves, or 2) it is widely agreed on by scholars, or 3) is fictional and portrayed as such)

Represents

ethnic group (Q41710)

Data type

Item

Domain

person (Q215627), fictional character (Q95074), diaspora (Q133004), family (Q8436), cultural festival (Q64272108), legendary figure (Q13002315), language (Q34770), mythical creature (Q2239243), mythical character (Q4271324), human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), sexual minority (Q589656), gender minority (Q11894636), sexual identity (Q1165905), gender identity (Q48264), music genre (Q188451), political movement (Q2738074), aspect by ethnic group (Q106727146), ethnic community (Q25380035), tribe (Q133311) or group of humans (Q16334295)

Example

Karl Marx (Q9061) → Ashkenazi Jews (Q34069)
Yasser Arafat (Q34211) → Arabs (Q35323)
Nikita Khrushchev (Q35314) → Russians (Q49542)
Huang Xianfan (Q5208) → Zhuang people (Q36692)
Mahatma Gandhi (Q1001) → Gujarati people (Q1282294)

Format and edit filter validation

Abuse filter #95

Tracking: usage

Category:Pages using Wikidata property P172 (Q23909094)

See also

indigenous to (P2341), culture (P2596), country of citizenship (P27), country for sport (P1532), permanent resident of (P5389), tribe (P12011)

Lists

Living people protection class

property likely to be challenged (Q44597997), property that may violate privacy (Q44601380)

Proposal discussion

[not applicable Proposal discussion]

Current uses

Total	133,653
Main statement	132,632	99.2% of uses
Qualifier	999	0.7% of uses
Reference	22	<0.1% of uses

Search for values

[create Create a translatable help page (preferably in English) for this property to be included here]

Type “person (Q215627), fictional character (Q95074), diaspora (Q133004), family (Q8436), cultural festival (Q64272108), legendary figure (Q13002315), language (Q34770), mythical creature (Q2239243), mythical character (Q4271324), human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), sexual minority (Q589656), gender minority (Q11894636), sexual identity (Q1165905), gender identity (Q48264), music genre (Q188451), political movement (Q2738074), aspect by ethnic group (Q106727146), ethnic community (Q25380035), tribe (Q133311), group of humans (Q16334295)”: item must contain property “instance of (P31), subclass of (P279)” with classes “person (Q215627), fictional character (Q95074), diaspora (Q133004), family (Q8436), cultural festival (Q64272108), legendary figure (Q13002315), language (Q34770), mythical creature (Q2239243), mythical character (Q4271324), human whose existence is disputed (Q21070568), sexual minority (Q589656), gender minority (Q11894636), sexual identity (Q1165905), gender identity (Q48264), music genre (Q188451), political movement (Q2738074), aspect by ethnic group (Q106727146), ethnic community (Q25380035), tribe (Q133311), group of humans (Q16334295)” or their subclasses (defined using subclass of (P279)). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Type Q215627, Q95074, Q133004, Q8436, Q64272108, Q13002315, Q34770, Q2239243, Q4271324, Q21070568, Q589656, Q11894636, Q1165905, Q48264, Q188451, Q2738074, Q106727146, Q25380035, Q133311, Q16334295, SPARQL

Value type “ethnic group (Q41710), people (Q2472587), nationality (Q231002), human race (Q3254959), nation (Q6266), Indigenous people (Q103817), fictional ethnic group (Q2590445), tribe (Q133311), fictional species (Q21192438), ethnic minority group (Q2531956), mythical ethnic group (Q63046488), ethnic or cultural group in fiction (Q112583859), ethnolinguistic group (Q4533081), human population (Q33829), ethnic community (Q25380035), fictional race (Q41597955)”: This property should use items as value that contain property “instance of (P31)”. On these, the value for instance of (P31) should be an item that uses subclass of (P279) with value ethnic group (Q41710), people (Q2472587), nationality (Q231002), human race (Q3254959), nation (Q6266), Indigenous people (Q103817), fictional ethnic group (Q2590445), tribe (Q133311), fictional species (Q21192438), ethnic minority group (Q2531956), mythical ethnic group (Q63046488), ethnic or cultural group in fiction (Q112583859), ethnolinguistic group (Q4533081), human population (Q33829), ethnic community (Q25380035), fictional race (Q41597955) (or a subclass thereof). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Value type Q41710, Q2472587, Q231002, Q3254959, Q6266, Q103817, Q2590445, Q133311, Q21192438, Q2531956, Q63046488, Q112583859, Q4533081, Q33829, Q25380035, Q41597955, SPARQL

Conflicts with “instance of (P31): Wikimedia permanent duplicate item (Q21286738)”: this property must not be used with the listed properties and values. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Conflicts with P31, search, SPARQL

Citation needed: the property must have at least one reference (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#citation needed

Item “instance of (P31)”: Items with this property should also have “instance of (P31)”. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Item P31, search, SPARQL

Scope is as main value (Q54828448), as qualifier (Q54828449): the property must be used by specified way only (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Scope, SPARQL

Allowed entity types are Wikibase item (Q29934200), Wikibase MediaInfo (Q59712033): the property may only be used on a certain entity type (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P172#Entity types

This property is being used by:

Please notify projects that use this property before big changes (renaming, deletion, merge with another property, etc.)

Constraints

Claims without source
Each P172 claim needs to have at least one (non Wikipedia) source (Help)
Violations query:

SELECT DISTINCT ?item { ?item p:P172 ?claim; wdt:P31 wd:Q5 . OPTIONAL { ?claim prov:wasDerivedFrom ?source . ?source ?p ?v . FILTER NOT EXISTS { ?v wdt:P31 wd:Q10876391 } } FILTER(!bound(?source)) }

List of this constraint violations: Database reports/Complex constraint violations/P172#Claims without source

Discussion

See Wikidata:Property_proposal/Nationality for a related discussion.

Rules for Usage

Rule	Archived Discussion
Use this property only together with a reference in that the person itself states her/his ethinicty	Ongoing discussion (german)

Signification

Français : quelle est la signification de cette propriété ? A-t-elle été discutée avant création ?
English: what is the meaning of this property ? Has it been discussed before its creation?
--Gloumouth1 (talk) 12:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nation Q6266 - fr:Nation - en:Nation

אבגד (talk) 12:45, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please use country of citizenship (RFD). --Kolja21 (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK. thank you very much. אבגד (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I responded there, and as I wrote there, and I gave an example, there is a difference between citizenship and ethnicity. We will continue the discussion there. אבגד (talk) 07:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A recent discussion concluded that ethnicity, nationality (even culture and peoples) are the same thing, and quite different from Citizenship: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/Nationality --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 10:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial

Archived discussion

Ethnic group is not a well defined property. We should delete it. To the examples: Bloomberg is US-citizen and his religion is Judaism. That's it. His family has roots in russia and poland. What ethnic group is he in? The jewish-russian-poland-living-in-US-group?

Guliani: Why is he an ethnical italian? Because of his name??? I would not say that Guliani has more in common with somebody living in Italy than me. Ethnical group is a minefield. --Svebert (talk) 11:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that the above examples are not good. But I think we should try to restrict the usage, not just delete it. In some cases, ethnic group is actually well defined. For instance, in China (and in Russia/Soviet Union before 1997), every citizen's Identity Card lists an officially defined ethnic group. --Stevenliuyi (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think even “official” documents like a passport stating someone's ethnicity are not enough to reference an usage of this property. Because this could easily extended to official lists or tags and then in my memory the usage of the en:David's star in the en:Drittes Reich comes up. I want to say: Even official documents often are meant to stigmatize humans. I still think that this property should only used if and only if the person stated its ethnicity as “self statement“--Svebert (talk) 11:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You mean 100% of the population of the Soviet Union have been stigmatized because they had "Nationality" in their official documents? Eldizzino (talk) 18:37, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

1) the word "often" means not in every case. 2) AFAIK the Soviet Union is not know for beeing a pioneer in human rights issues. Wikidata and Stalin is not a promising combination. --Kolja21 (talk) 05:21, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The use of this property would need to be defined more precisely, both regarding what qualifies as an ethnicity (& this probably depends on the nationality of the person considered) and what kind of sources are needed. —Tinm (d) 00:38, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Getty puts the emphasis on self-determination, and reading the Description of this prop, the same policy has been adopted. Forget about "official": governments are too often in controversy with their citizens, especially after annexations and the like --Vladimir Alexiev (talk) 13:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know how to define someone from two ethnic groups? For instance, I'm editing Robert Davidson's wikidata page (Q7343412). He is Haida and Tlingit, which are technically two different groups under First Nations. When I input the two, even as being a sub-grouping under First Nation, the constraint still pops up. A similar issue also comes up for Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex (Q3304418), who is biracial. Is there a specific P-number for those of mixed ethnic background? Morinjam (talk) 17:18, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2015-05 Constraint:Value type

I added a Constraint:Value type. At first it was a test, but since it allow to find and correct errors such using P172 intead of country of citizenship (P27), I will let it. However, it MUST NOT be seen as an official or complete list of allowed classes for this propoerty. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 19:52, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Should this property be used for places?

Places like wikipedia:Canada have "Ethnic groups" or "Ethnic demography". Should this property be used for that info box field or should a new one be created? Davidwbarratt (talk) 12:51, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Add country, but how to enforce percentage

I added a "country" to the list of instances that it works on, but I'm not sure how to add a percentage qualifier (i.e. White 78%) etc. Davidwbarratt (talk) 20:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Davidwbarratt: You shouldn't have done that, so I reverted your modification. A change on an already controversial property needs to be discussed first, so wait to receive some feedback or try reaching to a wider audience at the Project Chat. Andreasm ^{háblame / just talk to me} 07:46, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andreasmperu: There hasn't been discussion on this property on this page since 2013 (4 years ago). Property_talk:P140#Use_for_churches_as_well.3F discusses the use of religion or worldview (P140) on items other than human (Q5), so this sets a precedent for using ethnic group (P172) on items other than human (Q5) as well. ethnic group (Q41710) is always going to be difficult to define because the term is used differently around the world and methods of measuring population (Q2625603) by ethnic group (Q41710) are varied and inconsistent. There are many sources which approximate the population (Q2625603) by ethnic group (Q41710) for different country (Q6256) and geographic region (Q82794), and therefore this information is suitable for inclusion in Wikidata. Whilst the methodologies for determining ethnic group (Q41710) may be questionable, the information about how humans label and group each other into various ethnic group (Q41710) over time is valuable information when accurately referenced/sourced. Pixeldomain (talk) 08:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Davidwbarratt: proportion (P1107) is used to define percentages (proportions) as a decimal number ranging from 0 (0%) to 1 (100%). Pixeldomain (talk) 08:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Same as Nationality?

Hi, in Wikidata:Property proposal/Nationality there is a discussion about extending this property to also add information which is better described as Nationality than ethnicity. For example we might have "Australians" and "Canadians" which likely can not be described as ethnicities. I think that would make this property much more useful. For people using it in infoboxes. --Jarekt (talk) 16:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be more clear to rename the property to "Ethnic group or nationality" similar to "sex or gender (P21)" property. --Jarekt (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

+1 --Pasleim (talk) 07:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, if we add "or nationality" to anything, it should be country of citizenship (P27).--Pharos (talk) 08:22, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I thought too, and it works for contemporary people. But look at Albrecht Dürer (Q5580): everybody describes him as "German painter" but his country of citizenship (P27) is not "Germany". Adolf Hitler (Q352) is also described as "German", but he has 6 country of citizenship (P27) and none of them is "Germany" either. But you can say that his "Ethnic group or nationality" was "German". --Jarekt (talk) 11:42, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You can perhaps say his ethnic group is German, but I don't think you can say his nationality is. I've proposed a different way to think about this on the Wikidata:Property proposal/Nationality, which is that instead of sorting individuals by "nation", we sort the states they are citizens/subjects of, for example the "historical German states".--Pharos (talk) 04:49, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed cleanup of unsourced P172 claims

I have opened a discussion at Wikidata:Project chat#Cleanup of unsourced “ethnic group (P172)” claims recently that deals with the finding that almost all claims with this property are unsourced, in spite of a “requires source” constraint. In the WD:PC topic I am looking for further input. Thanks, MisterSynergy (talk) 09:05, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a good idea to delete unsourced values. Adding a reference is generally easy for indigenous peoples in Canada, I done it for Blake Desjarlais (Q108628440) and Laura Niquay (Q83378674). And since sourcing is mandatory there is no excuse for not adding a reference. Fralambert (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Same as race description?

We're working with data from scholarly sources that have previously used a race description field to represent how 19th-century American individuals have race appear within documentary sources like newspapers, enlistment forms, or census records. Those descriptions may vary from one document to another (as when a census enumerator in 1870 describes a person as "Black", but one in 1880 describes the same person as "Mulatto") and are often in 19th-century wording, with all the attendant baggage. Is P172 the appropriate property to use here? Nineteenth Century Digital Cooperative (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Use of this property in mythology items

I see that Celtic mythology (Q1106575) has ethnic group (P172) → Ancient Celts (Q35966), along with a constraint violation, as mythology (Q9134) are not among the types allowed to have this property, but I think it would be a good idea to fix the constraint and spread the use on all others mythology items: it is relevant and not controversial. Any thoughts? -Ash Crow (talk) 22:00, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is also indigenous to (P2341). This is a quite vague property but I think that this may be better suited for this purpose. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 05:50, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And culture (P2596) would be an option, too. -Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 05:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think culture (P2596) is the better option, thanks! -Ash Crow (talk) 17:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant discussion

FYI, watchers of this page may be interested in Wikidata:Property proposal/subpopulation 2, which would be used largely for specifying ethnic group subpopulations of countries/regions/organizations/etc. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Problematic tagging

"Tag:unsourced ethnicity addition by IP" appears to be explicitly used to add unreferenced claims with this property. Is there anything that can be done about this? Jumtist (talk) 11:07, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jumtist What do you want to be done about this? --Pyfisch (talk) 10:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pyfisch Undo every claims with this tag and consider investigating and/or block associated ips. More generally, listing alive human individuals according to their "ethnicity" is unacceptable. Translated in wikidata terms: no P172 claims on alive Q5. There are many possibilities to take action, some of which may include: 1/deleting the property 2/regularly clean unreferenced claims 3/block any IP adding unreferenced statements with this property. The 2 lasts are a posteriori, so 1/ would make more sense to me. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jumtist (talk • contribs).

@Jumtist: Thanks for clarifying. I think most of these IP users are are adding the claims in good-faith, so I wouldn't usually block them. In an attempt to get community feedback I removed completely unsourced ethnic group (P172) from one thousand items on living persons. However the response was mixed, while German speaking users supported the removal, other commentors complained that I didn't seek to establish consensus beforehand and that I didn't try to find sources for each individual claim. This is probably due to the fact that in France and Germany "ethnicity" as a whole is very problematic, while other cultures don't see it as problematic. Personally I'd like to place an emphasis on self-determination, like the current usage guidelines do. My preferred course of action would be to have an RFC on this with the goal to remove ethnic group (P172) claims and other WD:BLP#Statements likely to be challenged without proper references or relevance to Wikidata. In addition all users should be warned if they add such a claim to an item without sources and these claims should be regularly reviewed. In the meantime we can make fun about the 18 supposed ethnicities of Brad Pitt (Q35332). --Pyfisch (talk) 12:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The sources at Brad Pitt (Q35332) doesn't seem very trustworthy? @Pyfisch:--Trade (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Trade: Ethnicelebs.com, which is given as a source, is completely bonkers. They claim to use a bunch of Genealogy websites and other sources, but they seem to list the country of origin for every great-grandparent as an ethnicity which results in the long lists primarily for US-American celebrities. --Pyfisch (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Might be a good time toi blacklist the website. @Pyfisch:--Trade (talk) 15:20, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Trade: I'd rather have this page given as a source then no source, this way I at least know that the claim is unsubstantiated. Most people don't bother to gives sources anyway, so I don't know how effective a blacklist would be. --Pyfisch (talk) 16:15, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of ethnic group without sources

Hi, I removed ethnic group (P172) from a small sample of living people where the claim had no source at all. As ethnic group (P172) is a controversial property and it should only be used for people who claim the given ethnic group themselves or it is widely agreed upon by scholars. Please discuss at Wikidata:Edit groups/QSv2T/1603028249716 on how you want to proceed with these claims lacking sources. --Pyfisch (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It much harder to figure out which items have been affected now there's no page listing them. --Trade (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there is, visit the edit groups page and click "see all". --Pyfisch (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bot request

If you are interessed, I made a Bot Request about depreciating all the statement of this property only sourced with imported from Wikimedia project (P143). The discussion is there:Wikidata:Bot requests#request to depreciated ethnic group only sourced with P143 (2021-10-23). --Fralambert (talk) 15:33, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why deprecate statements like Muhammad (Q9458)ethnic group (P172)Arabs (Q35323), Elizabeth I of England (Q7207)ethnic group (P172)English people (Q42406), and Emperor Wu of Han (Q7225)ethnic group (P172)Han Chinese people (Q42740)? These statements are so obviously true, only idiots don't believe that. Midleading (talk) 16:20, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statistical gotchas

I want to point out that due to how loosely "ethnicity" is defined, this makes it impossible to do comparative statistics on in many cases. One country's statistics bureau might have a different method for determining someone's ethnicity than what another country uses. You should assume this to be the case. This means you can not compare ethnicity across state-borders, as that is an apples to oranges comparison and completely invalid. Infrastruktur (talk) 12:21, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Property talk:P172

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